A Russian court has sentenced a former Yandex employee to 15 years in prison for donating to the Ukrainian army in the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. In late 2022, after Vladimir Putin announced mobilization, Sergei Irin left the country, first moving to Turkey and later to Sri Lanka. In May 2024, he was detained in Nizhny Novgorod, where he had briefly returned to visit his family.
The Moscow City Court sentenced former Yandex employee Sergei Irin to 15 years in prison and a fine of five million rubles ($62,000) on charges of treason for transferring $500 to a nonprofit organization supporting the Ukrainian army in 2022, Mediazona reported.
During the sentencing, Irin refused to stand and held up a sign reading “Putin is a dickhead!” According to Mediazona, at the start of the trial he also asked for the same phrase to be read aloud during witness questioning, for which he repeatedly received verbal warnings from the judge.
A programmer by profession, Irin made the donation to the “Come Back Alive” fund on February 27, 2022, using his Russian bank card, just days after the invasion began. He later left Russia, living in Turkey and Sri Lanka, before returning in April 2024 to see relatives and friends. It was during this visit that he was arrested.
Irin did not deny that he knowingly sent money “to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” One of his relatives told Mediazona: “He supports Ukraine, that’s why he made the transfer. And he still supports it.”
Footage of the arrest released by the FSB shows officers forcefully slamming Sergei Irin to the ground and handcuffing him. Inside the police vehicle, he was asked: “What is your opinion of the current government?” — “Negative,” he replied. The next question: “Have you taken part in protests?” — “I have.” According to Irin, after his arrest officers used a stun gun on him during interrogation before transferring him by plane to Moscow’s Lefortovo pre-trial detention center.
Mediazona notes that authorities are increasingly opening treason cases against citizens who donated money to Ukraine, and such transfers are not difficult to trace. Those who sent funds from Russian bank cards in the first days of the war—before sanctions made this impossible—are identified through payment data that banks are required to share with Rosfinmonitoring. Those who used foreign cards are often “caught” at the border, where security officers demand that travelers unlock their phones and open banking apps. This was how a $51 donation made by U.S.-Russian dual citizen Ksenia Karelina was discovered; she was held on treason charges until a prisoner exchange in April 2025.